


the long way home

by danthrusts



Category: Phandom, dan and phil
Genre: Food, Kissing, M/M, PDA, Swearing, cheating/toxic relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6438010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danthrusts/pseuds/danthrusts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan’s Christmas Eve hasn’t quite been going as planned. His parents can’t make it home because they’re stuck in some foreign country, so he has to go up north to his grandparents’ house, all along while missing his girlfriend’s Christmas party extravaganza. Throw a train, two annoying girls, a small town diner, and a cute boy with pale skin and dark hair into the mix and he has himself the weirdest Christmas Eve he’s ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the long way home

**Author's Note:**

> so last year i read the book let it snow (kinkshame me, i’m ready) and there was this story called “The Jubilee Express” and i was like shit that’s so cute, and this year i reread it and i was like “,,,,i’m going to make it gay” so i changed some things but it’s kind of the same storyline so whatever and now here we are, hope you enjoy, friendos.
> 
> title by kate ( @celestialhowell) also special thank you to her for beta-ing this and reading it and giving lots of encouragement !!!
> 
> ps; this was originally posted on my blog danthrusts.tumblr.com

It wasn’t necessarily a bad Christmas Eve until Dan’s parents called him from an unknown phone number saying they were stuck hours away from home, in another country, because they had to take an emergency landing in some foreign country (Dan was 99% sure the country they claimed they were in didn’t exist, but that was besides the point.). They were staying in a gross, murky motel room, which apparently reeked of onions and mildew, and though Dan was upset about their absence, he was ecstatic he wasn’t in that dump. Dan’s parents informed him that although they were stranded in an ugly motel, it didn’t mean he couldn’t still have a good Christmas. So, he was to take a train to his grandparents’ house up north and they would all have a late Christmas together when his parents were able to return.

Dan didn’t say it, but he wasn’t exactly in dire need of them being there, nor was he in need of going to his grandparents’ house – he was 17 years old; he could full well take care of himself for a night or two longer (it just meant another pizza to order, and how could he ever turn that down?). Plus, his girlfriend Violet was having a Christmas party with her family that night, and they were so kind to invite him. It was also their one year anniversary, and he really didn’t want to miss it.

His parents informed him they had already purchased a train ticket for his journey and directed him to the emergency money they kept in the kitchen for extra necessities. They advised him to pack quickly because, unfortunately, as it was Christmas Eve, there weren’t many trains going anywhere, and his train would be leaving shortly, with or without him.

Dan rushed to pack his bags, packing mostly the bare essentials: his phone, earbuds, two pairs of jeans, three shirts, a couple pairs of socks, some underwear, a book, money, and his phone charger. Looking back, he certainly wished he would have packed hair straighteners and a toothbrush, but he was in a rush; he clearly wasn’t thinking of hygiene as he stuffed the book into his backpack.

Ready to go, he stumbled into the brisk air to begin his train journey up north to his grandparents’ house.

As he waited for his train to arrive, money and ticket in hand, he presumed this would be a good time to call Violet and tell her about his situation. She was probably busy with something like cooking or decorating for the party, typical party things (not that Dan would know; it’s not like he’s ever hosted any parties, really). She informed him not to call unless it was very important, but he concluded not being able to come to the party because he was on his way up north to his grandparents’ house because his parents couldn’t make it home for Christmas as they were stuck in some ranks foreign country could certainly be classified as important – so he called.

She picked up on the fifth ring, not that he was counting (he was). “Dan? Hi, this is kind of a really bad time to call. I’m currently hanging tinsel around the house and standing on a ladder, so I can’t talk right now. I’ll talk to you later when I see you at the Christmas party!” Violet made kissy noises into the speaker, but Dan interrupted her with a nervous chuckle.

“Er, actually that’s kind of what I wanted to speak with you about. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to your Christmas party. Sorry, Vi.” Dan twisted the strap of his bag between his fingers nervously as he peered around the mostly empty platform.

“Sure you will! If it’s about transportation, I can always send someo–”

“It’s not about transportation,” he interrupted her, quickly wetting his dry lips before he continued on. “Unless you count the fact that my parents are stuck in a different country for Christmas, so they are sending me up north to be with my grandparents as a transportation problem.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Violet said as Dan heard a crinkling noise in the background, probably tinsel. “I guess I’ll see you in a few days, then?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Dan tapped his fingers anxiously on the back of his phone. “I just wish I could spend Christmas Eve with you, like we had planned.” He looked down at his shoes.

“It’s terrible we can’t spend this Christmas Eve together, but things come up, I guess,” she said flatly. “Look, I have to go, but we’ll see each other when you get home and we’ll have our own special Christmas, just you and me. Bye!” The line clicked flat before Dan could even say good-bye back. It seemed the words “special” and “Christmas” had been showing up together a lot lately.

Dan shoved his phone and freezing hands into his jacket pockets and let out a cold breath. He should have accounted for how late the train would be.

Finally, after what felt like thirty years but was actually only ten minutes of waiting, the train arrived and stopped at the platform. Dan double checked to make sure this was, in fact, his train before boarding and cozying himself up in the warmth of the empty car.

Most people travel a few days before Christmas Eve; Dan was not most people. Dan was only traveling because his parents decided they needed to take a vacation and return at the worst possible time. Dan didn’t want to be in this empty train (though it was comfier than being outside). Dan wanted to be at his warm house, getting ready for Violet’s Christmas party.

Since he had the whole car to himself, he decided to use it as an advantage and get comfortable. He sat his feet up on the seat in front of him and lowered his own chair back. He placed his earbuds into his ears and drifted into the music, focusing on nothing else.

About an hour later, Dan’s stomach grumbled, causing him to jump. He scowled down at his stomach and glanced around to make sure no one else had boarded the car, though he was sure everyone in a ten kilometer radius could have heard that. Thankfully, no one was in the car with him, but he still decided to make his way to the food car of the train. This involved tracking through cars of other people with his bag of stuff, but he was willing to complete the sacrifice for food.

Unfortunately, as it was the holidays, they were fresh out of food, and only had a few things to eat: a few muffins, a gross microwavable pizza, a few surprisingly ripe apples, and couple candy canes in a Christmasy mug. The mug read, Free Take One. Dan gladly took one of the sad red and white candy canes, hoping to thrust a bit of Christmas cheer into him. He really needed it. The woman behind the concession gave him a sad smile; she clearly was not excited to be there either. Dan ordered a hot chocolate, microwave pizza, and three muffins. He gave the employee a small smile – just enough to show her the mutual feeling, and maybe enough to pass on the Christmas cheer.

She handed him his food and he headed back to his lonely, empty car.

It seemed as soon as Dan sat down and got settled in his seat, his train halted, and the doors of the train creaked open. A tall, dark skinned man boarded the train. He seemed around Dan’s age, or maybe a little older. He was quite handsome with a defined jawline and high cheekbones – Dan was jealous of the man’s face. He sat in the seat opposite Dan, a twinge of sadness lining his cheeks. Dan wondered what was wrong, but he didn’t question the stranger; it wasn’t polite.

Dan picked at the disgusting microwave pizza; it tasted like cardboard and tomato paste, both of which he was not particularly a fan of. To be honest, he should have expected it to taste like cardboard – it had come from a train, and surely train food was not good food.

The man sitting across from him eyed his pizza as Dan picked at it. Dan looked up and shook his head at him. “Are you hungry? You don’t want this,” he dug in his bag for the muffins. “It tastes like shit.” He held out a muffin, “I haven’t tried these, but they’re packaged and haven’t been in the microwave, so I’d assume they’re better than whatever this is imposter pizza is.”

The man shook his head as he continued to eye the muffin Dan held out. “No, you don’t have to–”

“I want to, here, just take it.” Dan tossed the packaged muffin to the man. “I’m Dan, by the way.”

“Max,” he said, thumbing the wrapper of the muffin. “and thank you.” Max looked up at Dan and gave him a soft smile. Dan returned the smile in his direction and nodded to acknowledge the thank you.

The two were mostly quiet after that. Dan returned his earbuds to his ears and sipped his hot chocolate while Max nibbled on the blueberry muffin. The train stopped again, letting on two girls. Dan wouldn’t have even noticed them if it weren’t for their annoying, high pitched voices. Everything they said sounded like a shrieking monkey. Dan also wouldn’t have noticed the snow falling outside if it weren’t for the two girls’ loud complaining about how cold and wet they were.

Dan closed his eyes. Please don’t sit behind me, please don’t sit behind me, he thought over and over again. They sat behind him. Of course.

He felt someone tap his shoulder. “Excuse me, could you scoot up?” one of them asked him. He pursed his lips together and moved his seat up. Of all the seats in the mostly empty train car, they chose the one behind him. So much for relaxing, he thought.

The girls behind him chattered away. Dan made his music louder; they spoke louder. Dan pushed his volume up to the full 100% – they forced their way through that barrier.

He took his earbuds out. There was no point of listening to music now when all he could focus on was their obnoxious jabbering.

After twenty minutes of constant talking, he couldn’t take it anymore. He got up, leaving his bags and stuff in his seat, and strode to the bathroom. His plan was to hide there for five or ten minutes – or really until people were complaining. Maybe they wouldn’t complain and he’d be able to get away from them for the rest of the trip. That’d be nice.

Since there was a public unisex bathroom on the train, and there was only one of them, people complained. They complained after around 15 minutes. Someone knocked on the bathroom door, loudly. “Could you hurry up? I need to pee really bad.” Dan knew that voice from half an hour of constant talking – it was one of the girls from his train car; of course it was.

“Yeah, I’m done.” He flushed the toilet and washed his hands to make it seem like he was actually doing something in there before he unlocked the door and let the girl in.

He got a good look at her since he obviously hadn’t before. She had auburn hair and freckles that danced across her nose – she was pretty, but not the kind of pretty Violet was, though they looked fairly similar. Violet may have had the same hair and same freckles, but unlike the other girl, she had an aura she gave off that made people like her.

Despite looking like the other girl, Violet wasn’t annoying when she talked. In fact, her voice was strong and cute at the same time – it was just the right pitch. She was quite intelligent, too. She got straight A’s and was involved in so many activities: cheerleading, volleyball, art club, debate team, drama, and so many more. Plus, she was good at all of the things she did. Dan didn’t know how she could do it.

Dan wondered why she was even dating him in the first place. Sure, he was in drama, and he guessed he was kind of smart (smarter than his classmates, sure, but…), but other than that, he wasn’t really similar to her in any way. He had no interest in joining any clubs or activities – well, besides drama.

Dan started back toward his seat, a.k.a. Hell, though it probably wouldn’t be as bad because the other girl was off on a pee break. He’d get at least five minutes of peace before she returned.

When he got back to his seat, however, he saw the other girl’s friend nuzzled into Max. Her head was lying upon his shoulder as she talked about how cute he was. Max gave small, polite smiles as she spoke, but when he noticed Dan was there his eyes screamed for help. Great, he thought, guess there is no peace and quiet after all.

“Did I even tell you my name? Sorry! My name is Jessica and my friend – the one that to the bathroom – her name is Becky.” Jessica was a talker. She talked so much, nonstop, in such a peppy voice. Dan wished she would have been the one to use the bathroom instead of Becky.

“I am sixteen years old and I have two sisters, they’re both younger than me; one is thirteen and the other is twelve – they are such brats. They’re both experimenting with makeup but they won’t let me put it on for them, and yet they get upset when I tell them they look ugly with it on. I’m always like ‘Paisley, that is a lot of eyeshadow, fix it!’ and ‘Ellis, that’s too much eyeliner!’ but they’re always like ‘Jessica, shut up! I can do what I want!’. I think Ellis is going through an emo phase, like that kid over there.” She pointed at Dan. He waved awkwardly back at her, then she continued on, “and she listens to these bands that are, like, so hardcore. I hope she grows out of this phase; it’s so gross. She also sends me these texts with the letters X and D? The first time she did it I got so confused, she had to explain it to me and–”

Jessica was cut off by a loud banging sound and the lights going out. The whole train shook. “What was that!?” Jessica yelled, unhooking herself from Max (which Max seemed very relieved and thankful for), and jumping up from her seat.

“Sorry about that,” a staticy voice said as the lights, though now dimmer than they had been, came back on. They paused and gave a nervous laugh. “Unfortunately, we have crashed into a large pile of snow, which is why the electricity went out for a moment. We will need to conserve power, so we have dimmed the lights and lowered the heat. If you have extra blankets to share, please give them to your fellow passengers. Sadly, as the roads are far too icy, help will not be on the way until this snow slows a bit, which, according to the weather, will not be for at least a day. If you need to call anyone and don’t have a cell phone, you may go to the concessions where they will allow you to phone someone. Thank you for traveling with us, and have a very Merry Christmas.”

Dan sighed. Merry Christmas my ass. He was stuck on a train on the 24th of December with two annoying girls who were never quiet and Max. This was definitely not on his top ten ways to spend Christmas Eve. Hell, it wasn’t even in his top fifty. He checked the time on his phone; he could have been getting ready for Violet’s party right now if his parents wouldn’t have sent him to his grandparents’ house.

“–anyways, as I was saying,” Jessica had already propped herself back onto Max and continued to tell him about her life story.

Jessica was once again interrupted by her phone going off. She checked it. “Oh no!” she gasped, looking from Max and back to her phone. “Becky needs me to bring her extra clothes because when the train crashed, her gross pee water got all over her skirt. It was designer! It was Chanel!” She seemed genuinely flabbergasted by the idea that urine got on her friend’s skirt.

“Oh no, you better go help her.” Max exclaimed, pretending to be slightly interested in Becky’s designer skirt. Dan could see through it, but apparently Jessica could not as she quickly nodded her head and scavenged through Becky’s bag, looking for a new outfit. She grabbed sweatpants from the bag and headed toward the bathroom, mumbling something about how Becky better like the sweatpants if she’s forcing her to go all the way there for her. Besties are great.

Dan looked out the window and sure enough, there was snow, and lots of it. He estimated it to be around roughly 30 centimeters; it was snowing hard. He peered through the snow to see a dimly lit sign. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out what the sign said. After around two minutes of straining his eyes to see through the snow, he gave up trying to read it.

Dan shivered. The train was getting colder and colder by the minute. “I’m going over to that building,” he announced to Max who looked up from his book; he was reading To Kill a Mockingbird. “I think it’s like a diner or something, I don’t know – it probably has heat and food and, well not… that.” he gestured to the microwave pizza that was still sitting in front of him, hardly touched at all. What a waste of money. He thought about how Max would be stuck here with Becky and Jessica, and he felt bad for him. “Do you want to come?”

Max considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “I feel kind of uneasy leaving the train. If the train leaves and I’m not on it, then I don’t have any way of getting home to my family… but good luck.” The corners of his mouth raised slightly, then he began to read his book again.

“Thanks,” Dan peered out the train window again. “I think I’m going to need it.”

He gathered his things from his seat and threw his coat back on. He shoved his arms into the straps of his backpack and exited the train into the freezing cold air.

You know how when you were younger and you used to open the freezer and stick your head in it when it was hot outside, and it felt kind of good? This was nothing like that. Dan stepped out of the train and instantly snowflakes thrashed into his cheeks. He could feel his skin turning a rosy red already and he hadn’t even been out there for thirty seconds.

Dan trudged through the snow, kicking it up and over with each step. His teeth chattered and he rubbed his hands together to get the escaped warmth back into his body. It was so cold; he wished he would have just stayed on the train, but it was too late to turn back now – he was already halfway there.

Dan arrived at the door, which thankfully said they were open and to come on in. Gladly, he thought as he pulled open the door of the diner.

The inside of the diner was brightly lit and warm. A teenager around Dan’s age was sat behind the register, a magazine propped on her lap. She looked up with a grin. “Welcome to Café Luna. Everything is half price today; plus, we have fresh tea, coffee, and hot chocolate if you need to warm up. It will only be £0.50, instead of full price. Would you like a menu?”

“Yes, please,” he replied, then added, “Also, would you be able to get me a cup of something hot? I don’t really care what it is; I just need to reheat.”

“Of course.” She placed her magazine under the countertop, then headed back toward the kitchen for what Dan assumed would be his hot liquid and menu. He looked around the small building for a seat and decided to sit on a stool at the countertop. He figured if he were going to be here for a while, he might as well make awkward small talk with the employee. She came out of the kitchen with those two things. “Here you go.” She placed them in front of him, then went back to her seat and picked up her magazine again. Dan nodded a thank you and glanced over the menu.

Dan eventually ordered a meal and gave back the menu, sipping his hot chocolate as the employee walked away to get his order ready. He pulled out his phone, checking to see if he had any missed calls from his family or Violet; he didn’t.

As he was putting his phone away, the bell on the door rang, signifying someone had entered. He half-turned, expecting it to be Max or something (because who on Earth would ever go out into that snowstorm) but it wasn’t. It was a person, or at least he thought it was a person, covered head to toe in wet plastic bags from Tesco. They began to strip them off, one by one, soon becoming a big lump of blue coat. They removed the hood from their head, revealing ebony hair that looked similar to Dan’s. They were male, he presumed. The man unzipped his coat and stomped his feet on the welcome mat in front of the door.

“Hey, Elise,” He momentarily stopped stamping his feet into the ground to call out to what Dan assumed was the employee’s name. “Could you get me a pumpkin spice, please?” He stamped his feet into the ground once more for good measure before making his way over to where Dan was sitting.

“Phil, is that you? Already on it,” Elise called from the back. Dan and Phil sat in silence for a few seconds before Elise appeared from the back with a steaming hot mug. “All coffees are only £0.50 today,” she mentioned, carefully setting it down in front of him.

“Thanks!” Phil replied, taking a small sip of the hot liquid. Elise nodded her reply and went back behind the kitchen doors to make Dan’s food.

Once again, it was quiet between the two, so Dan spoke up, “So… plastic bags?” he asked, trying to make small talk, and glanced from Phil to the bags lying in front of the door next to all of the snow that had fallen off of him. He was going to make some kind of friend on this journey if it killed him.

“They keep you warmer than you may think.” Phil laughed, sipping his coffee again and then looking around the room. “I don’t see any plastic bags, where is your insulin?”

“Unfortunately, only this coat,” Dan replied, tugging on the sleeves of his coat. “I felt like I was going to freeze to death as I walked over here. It’s like the opposite of Hell out there.” Phil laughed.

“How far did you walk?” Phil asked, genuinely making small talk now.

“Thankfully not far in this weather. It was about a 5 minute walk, um, my train is over there.” He couldn’t see his train because the snow was so thick, so he pointed to the general direction of it.

“Train?” Phil raised an eyebrow.

“Long story short, I was on a train to my grandparents’ house. The train crashed into some snow, there’s hardly any heat, and two annoying girls got urine on their skirts, so I came here for warmth and food that is not disgusting… well, and to get away from those two girls.” He left out the reason why he was on a train up north, but that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Phil nodded his head slowly. “Sounds… interesting,” he finally replied. “Are their skirts okay?”

“I’m not sure; I left before I could find out, but I’m sure they’re dandy.” He paused, remembering he hadn’t told him his name. “Oh, I’m Dan, by the way.”

“I’m Phil, nice to meet you.” He held out his hand for Dan to shake. Dan high fived it, only after realizing it was supposed to be a handshake, and not a high five. Phil covered his mouth with the hand Dan didn’t slap and laughed. “That’s alright too, I guess.”

“Oh my god, I’m sorry, I knew that was a handshake…” he trailed off in embarrassment as Phil continued to giggle. “You know what? I’m not even going to explain that.”

Elise, the employee, came from the back kitchen with a steaming hot plate of Dan’s food. It looked delicious. She set the plate down in front of Dan, then propped her arms up on the counter. “Enjoy,” she grinned, then looked at Phil. “No offense, but why are you here?”

“First of all, rude–” Phil started, but Elise cut him off.

“I meant why are you here in this god awful snowstorm, you idiot.” She reached her arm out and playfully smacked him. “And, are those plastic bags?”

“They are indeed. And because Tesco decided Christmas Eve was to be the day I come into work,” he complained, then continued on as if he were reciting someone else, “‘Come in on Christmas Eve; it’ll be the busiest day of the year! People still need to do last minute Christmas shopping, and we’ll pay you extra.’ It wasn’t busy, but hey, at least I’ll get the extra money.”

Elise and Phil continued their conversation as Dan ate his meal; it was delicious, though he couldn’t tell if he was just saying that because he was really hungry and it didn’t taste like train food, or if it was really extravagant.

The bell on the door rang once more; it was the three Dan had left behind on the train – Jessica was hanging onto Max’s arm as if she were sewn to him (“If I hang on your arm, it’ll give you body heat.”), and Becky was frowning down at her sweatpants as if she couldn’t possibly be seen in public with them. Elise stopped her conversation with Phil and gave her mini speech of the day. They nodded as their teeth clinked together and began to sit down at the closest table to the door.

“This is the busiest I’ve been all day,” Elise mentioned to Phil as she turned from him to grab the menus. She ran them toward the group. They were still settling in – Becky rubbed her fingertips across her arms to create heat friction. Elise took their hot drink orders, all of which ordered coffee, and returned to the kitchen.

Max turned from his seat and waved at Dan. “We decided to join you over here, it got quite cold.” Becky and Jessica both quickly nodded their heads, unable to agree verbally as their teeth were still chittering. Dan gave an understanding nod, then turned back to his food.

“Are those the people from your train?” Phil whispered quietly, wrapping his fingers around the handle of his coffee mug.

“That would be them.” Dan confirmed just as quietly as Elise took their order.

As the two girls began to thaw, they began to talk more and more (and now they were both flirting with Max). Their infuriating voices rang throughout the diner as they sipped their coffees and told Max how big his muscles were (which wasn’t exactly untrue, to be honest).

Dan finished his plate, just barely, and glanced out the window. The snow was beginning to slow down, at least for the moment. He glanced at the group behind him, then turned to Phil. “So, would there be anywhere else I could go?” he practically begged, shifting his eyes from Phil to the group behind him. “Like a Starbucks or a library, or I don’t know… Hell?”

“They’re all closed,” Phil laughed. “and Hell would be a really long walk.”

Dan threw his head back and sighed loudly, earning a few looks from Max, Jessica, and Becky. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else open?”

“Yeah, this is the only thing open that I know of. Even Tesco is closed.”

Dan pursed his lips together and attempted to keep control of himself – if he didn’t, he was sure he was going to start banging his head against the table.

Phil must have noticed Dan’s despair, “I’m going to be getting home soon, you can come if you want,” he offered. Clearly weary of going home with a total stranger, Dan glanced from Phil to Becky and Jessica. Phil seemed to take note of Dan’s quandary and pulled out his wallet. “If you need proof of my identity, here is my card. My name, birthday, address – everything is there.”

Dan noticed a photo of Phil and a girl sitting in his wallet, which brushed away some of the worry of going home with a stranger. The guy had a girlfriend, or bestfriend, or sister who he loved enough to put in his wallet; he was just a normal guy with a last name (it was Lester) and everything. He also had a birthday (January 30 – he was almost 18).

“Are you sure?” Dan asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s Christmas Eve and I really wouldn’t want to cause any trouble for you and your family…”

“Are you kidding me? My mum would probably kill me if I didn’t ask you to come stay with us, let it be Christmas Eve or not.”

“My mum would probably kill me for going home with you, but as she’s in a foreign country right now, she doesn’t have to know.” Dan let out a light chuckle. “How far is it to your house?”

“Not far, if we take the shortcut,” Phil answered, gathering his jacket from the seat beside him. “Ready?”

“Not yet, I have to pay for my food,” Dan informed.

Phil nodded his head, then reached his hand forward and rang the bell continuously until Elise appeared from the kitchen. She shot him an annoyed look. “My friend here, needs his bill, Elise.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she said through clenched teeth as she hurried back to whatever she was doing. Moments later, she came from the kitchen and handed him the bill.

“Thank you,” Dan handed Elise the money then looked around. “Also, do you happen to have a restroom?” he shoved his hands in his pockets. She nodded and pointed in the direction of the toilets.

When they were sure he was in there, Elise smacked Phil’s arm lightly. “That’s for dinging the bell so many times.” She grinned and hoisted herself onto the counter (surely it was a violation of many health codes). “So, you’re taking a stranger home with you?” The girl raised an eyebrow curiously.

“Well, you know how my mum is,” Phil answered, pocketing his hands.

“What about those guys?” Elise gestured to Max, Jessica, and Becky with her head. Her short legs dangled against the counter top. “They’re trapped here, too.”

“My house isn’t that big.”

“You think he’s cute, don’t you?” she laughed, pressing her lips together into a smile. Phil didn’t answer her, so his best friend nodded her head.

Elise bounced off the counter when she heard Dan exiting the bathroom. She hurried back into the kitchen, waving a quick goodbye to the two who were trying to decide who would get more plastic bags than the other and where they would put them.

“I only have as many as I came here with, so,” Phil tossed a few crumpled plastic bags at Dan. “these will have to do. Just line them along your legs and the inside of your coat,” he instructed, putting his bags on himself.

As soon as they both were coated in the plastic Tesco bags, they pushed open the door and headed back into the brisk, cold air.

Luckily, the snow had died down a bit and it was easier to trudge through. Dan pocketed his hands and exhaled, watching his breath fog before him.

They walked down the empty street (or at least Dan thought it was a street; it was so hard to tell while everything was drenched in snow) in silence, both kicking snow over as they pushed their feet into it. After about 10 minutes of wordlessness, Phil spoke up, “So, um,” he began, “where are you from?”

“Wokingham,” Dan answered. He wasn’t exactly peppy in his replies as he was trying to not slip and die in the snow.

“That’s interesting,” Phil replied, “So, what brought you on the train in the first place – if you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

“My parents were on holiday, and were supposed to be home by now, but come with all this snow–” He kicked some of the fallen snow up with the tip of his foot. “–they had to take an emergency landing. They’re spending Christmas Eve in a grungy motel in some country I didn’t even know existed.”

“That’s awful!” Phil exclaimed. “Have you spoken with them recently? I’m sure they’re worried sick about you.”

“I haven’t exactly informed them on my situation, but who cares? I mean, there isn’t much they can do; they’re stuck in another country.” Dan thought about it. He probably should call them, but it was way below zero degrees Celsius and he was sure his family would not approve of him going home with some strange man he’d met in a diner, so he decided to keep it to himself – at least until he got to Phil’s house. He also thought about phoning his grandparents and informing them that he would sadly not be making it, but knowing his overly-caring grandmother, she would try to risk her life in the snow trying to come get him. Alas, he decided to not give them the hassle, at least not for now. Plus, he didn’t need his grandma being run over by a reindeer.

“Anyway, why don’t you tell me about you? What’s your girlfriend’s name?” Dan asked, trying to change the subject, but also trying to show that he was an observant individual. Maybe he’d impress the guy, who knows.

“Girlfriend?” Phil asked, raising an eyebrow. Impressing the boy wasn’t working out so far, alright.

“Yeah, girlfriend,” Dan insisted. “You had a photo in your wallet; it had you and this girl. I figured that was your girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Phil exclaimed, slightly surprised. “Yeah, no. Maybe best friend, but not girlfriend. By the way, her name is Louise.”

“Oh, sorry,” Dan chuckled awkwardly. “I was trying to show you how observant I can be. Clearly it didn’t work.”

“What about you?” Phil asked. “Do you have a girlfriend – or a boyfriend?”

Dan smiled sadly, thinking about Violet and her Christmas party. “I do; her name is Violet.”

“Oh, really? Tell me about her.”

“Well,” Dan started. “she is basically the opposite of me. She is in so many activities – cheerleading, debate, and drama, to name a few. She’s really smart, too, but she is really low-key smart – she doesn’t tell you her grades every four or five seconds and she doesn’t exactly try too hard to get the grades that she does. She’s like that one person who can hardly pay attention in class and still get a really good grade. She’s also really popular – everyone knows her.”

Dan felt like he was writing a description of his girlfriend on eBay – as if he were trying to sell her to Phil, but he didn’t know exactly how to answer the question. Everyone he knew, knew Violet. He wasn’t used to giving descriptions of his girlfriend.

Phil nodded his head as he tried to process all the information about her. “Good resume,” he finally commented. “But what is she like?”

“I just told you.”

“No, I mean like… personality-wise.” Phil pushed for information. The conversation truly was not going to end. “Is she someone who cries when the dog dies in a movie? I do that. Does she dance around her room when no one is looking? Does she sing into hairbrushes when she’s getting ready in the morning? Is she funny like you? What is her… essence?”

“Her essence is really… intense, I guess.”

“Good intense?”

“Well, yeah,” Dan answered. “I don’t think I would be dating her otherwise.” He attempted to change the subject. “How much further?”

“Not very,” Phil answered, also glad to switch to a different topic. “that is only if we continue with the shortcut. Are you sure you want to take the shortcut?”

“Yeah, I don’t see why not.”

“It’s kind of dangerous.”

“Danger is my middle name.” Dan clearly wanted to be out of the cold snow as quick as possible. “I mean, actually, it’s James but–”

“This is where we decide which way we’ll be taking,” Phil interrupted, stopping abruptly in the middle of the road (or what Dan thought was a road; he still wasn’t entirely sure).

“And we’ll be taking the shortcut.,” Dan decided quickly, eager to feel the blood in his body again. “If you were going to take this way anyway, then I don’t see why we can’t take it now.”

“Okay.” Phil began walking toward the snow covered trees before them. The plastic bags made a loud crinkling noise with each step. Dan followed closely behind.

After a while, Dan began to wonder – if this was the shortcut, then how far was the long way? Dan started to suspect that Phil tricked him and they were actually taking the long way. He didn’t know why Phil would do this to himself, but it made sense. He seemed quite against taking Dan along the shortcut.

“Stop,” Phil commanded as he halted unexpectedly. “I need to confess something to you.”

Dan was hardly listening; whatever the poor guy had to confess could wait until he was nice and warm in his house. “What?”

“There is very small stream right around this area. It’s completely solid – I mean, I saw some children sliding on it earlier. It should be safe, but I wanted to run it by you before we walked on it.”

“How deep is it?” Dan asked skeptically.

“Probably up to my chest, give or take a little,” Phil answered as best as he could.

“Where is it?” Dan looked across the snowy landscape, searching for a slight indication of frozen water beneath it. Nothing.

“Somewhere right in front of us. We could even be standing on it right now.” Dan looked down at his plastic bag covered feet. If they were standing on it now, it seemed pretty sturdy. “If you don’t want to go across, it’s okay. We can turn back–”

“No, it’s fine,” Dan interrupted. “So, we just keep walking, yeah?”

“That’s the plan.”

So, they continued walking across the snowy landscape. They knew they’d hit the stream when the snow became a tiny bit less deep and a little bit more slippery. They walked slowly, as if trying not to slip and fall, or as if walking slower would give them less of a chance to fall through the ice.

As it turned out, two tall teenage boys walking across a small stream is too much weight to handle, because as they were about halfway across, they heard a slight cracking sound. “Do you hear th–”

The ice broke and the two boys fell through.

If you have never been submerged in icy cold water, Dan could tell you how it felt. You know how when it’s still kind of cold and not really warm enough to go swimming, but you’re like ‘I’m going to go swimming anyway!’, so you dive in and your entire body feels like pins and needles because it’s freezing and you realize probably shouldn’t have gone swimming in the first place? That’s what falling through a frozen stream feels like, but times one hundred. It probably felt worse than dying, Dan thought.

“‘It’s solid,’ he says.” Dan tried to mock Phil despite the horrid conditions.

“Sorry, I th-thought it was.” Phil’s teeth knocked together. “This is bad.”

“Is it?” Dan tried to scream, but the amount of air in his lungs didn’t allow him to scream, so instead it sounded like he was hissing.

“Should we break it?” Phil asked. Dan nodded as the idea had occurred to him too, but he didn’t say it because he was kind of sure it’d sound stupid. Now that Phil had said it, the idea sounded like as good a plan as any. Phil slowly rose his arms out of the water and attempted to hit the ice, wincing as he did so. Dan followed suit, figuring maybe they could get to the other side before they caught hypothermia if they both hacked at the thin ice in front of them until they got to the thicker ice; it was a lot shallower there. “Okay, you go f-first.”

Dan did not object as he reached out onto the slippery ice and pulled himself up. Phil pushed him out of the water with as much force as he could manage. Once he was out of the water, he turned around and helped pull Phil out. Being out of the water felt so much worse than being in the water, weirdly enough. He could feel the water freezing to his wet clothes. He was grateful he had a few plastic bags lining his clothing so he wasn’t entirely drenched. Unfortunately, however, his backpack that held his book, phone, earbuds, and clean clothes was soaked with water.

Dan’s teeth began to chatter and he rubbed his arms to try to get some warmth back into them. “How far n-now?” When he spoke, his lungs felt like they were going to explode. He was freezing.

“We’re ver-very close.” Phil rose a shaking hand and pointed in the direction of a cluster of houses on top of a hill. “It-it’s over th-there.”

Phil reached for Dan’s hand and began pulling him up the hill. Their legs wobbled with each step up the slope. Dan felt lucky that he was being dragged up the hill because if he weren’t he was sure he’d have never made it up there. His legs were too weak on their own.

Dan had never been so happy to see a house. Phil stopped and opened the unlocked door. He pulled Dan into the warm home and continued to pull him through the kitchen and down the hallway. Dan looked around as he Phil tugged him throughout the house – it smelled like Christmas, like peppermint and cinnamon. The parts of Phil’s house Dan saw were simple: a tree, wreaths, mistletoe, the smell of cookies and mince pie, dirty dishes in the sink from Christmas dinner, a Santa’s village setup, etc.

Phil stopped dragging him around when they reached a door. “Here, shower. Warm water,” he instructed, reaching into the bathroom, turning the light on, and shoving a soft towel into Dan’s hands. He pushed Dan into the room, then shut the door and hurried away.

Dan stripped his heavy, muddy, wet clothes off, as well as the plastic bags, and dropped them on the floor alongside his backpack. He reached for the faucet and quickly turned the water to hot. He stepped in the water, slumping himself up against the wall, embracing the warmth of the water pouring upon him. He didn’t even care if his hair got wet and his curly hair took over; it was worth the sacrifice for body heat.

Dan noticed the water temperature fluctuate as Phil was most likely also showering in another part of the house.

Unfortunately Dan’s backpack was not waterproof, so he had no clothing to wear when he finished his shower. Of course, he didn’t think about this until he was already in the shower. He was too awkward to call someone in for clothing, so instead, he continued to worry and bask in the heat of the water.

Dan only stepped out of the water when it got cold. He blindly reached for the towel Phil had shoved into his hands before his shower, but instead of a towel, he grabbed a soft grey Christmas jumper with golden bells on it. He searched the ground for his towel, slightly embarrassed someone had been in the bathroom while he was showering (he may or may not have been singing Bring Me To Life by Evanescence), but also entirely grateful that he didn’t have to shamefully beg for clothes. He also noticed his old wet clothes were gone from where he’d put them. He dried himself off with the towel that had fallen on the floor and slipped the jumper on over his head, along with the other clothing that was brought in for him.

Dan exited the bathroom and peeked out into the kitchen. The kitchen was empty, so he decided to stay in there for now. He pulled out one of the wooden chairs from the dining table, careful not to make a sound, and sat down in it.

When someone tapped on his shoulder, he turned around expecting it to be Phil. Instead, it was a smiling woman with shoulder-length ginger hair. He jumped, startled at the woman who smiled and looked him up and down. “Oh, you poor thing!” She patted his shoulder lightly. “Would you like some hot chocolate? I can make some if you’d like.” Her northern accent was strong as she spoke. She grinned, “Phil is upstairs, I’m his mum.”

“Um, yes please,” Dan smiled and tugged at the sleeves of his jumper. “Hot chocolate would be great, thank you.”

Phil’s mum scurried to the other side of the room and began making Dan’s hot chocolate. She tried to make small talk with Dan as she made the hot drink. “I see Phil’s clothes fit you well; he said they probably would. I took your backpack and laid it out to dry by the heater, and I took the contents out. If they were washable, I put them in the washing machine and if they weren’t I set them out next to your backpack and shoes. I saw your cell phone was in there, but I don’t think it was doing so well since it fell into the water with you. You can try it, but if it doesn’t work you are free to use our phone to call your family. Don’t worry if it’s long distance.”

That was Dan’s introduction to Mrs. Lester.

She shoved a steaming mug of hot chocolate into Dan’s hands and ordered him to drink up. If he wanted more, there was plenty of cocoa to go around. Then, she turned toward the refrigerator and began pulling out plastic wrapped plates and tubs of food. “We all had Christmas Eve dinner while Phil was working, but we have plenty of leftovers. Go ahead and help yourself.” She pushed the paper plates in front of Dan and began pulling out more plates of food than he was sure he could eat – not that he was complaining, he was hungry despite just having eaten food hours ago. Falling into icy streams and trekking through snow and ice is hard work. She pulled out every single plate of food she had and insisted on making him a big plate with a side of soup.

Phil reappeared in the doorway. His hair was still slightly wet from his shower and he had put on an oversized Christmas jumper and pajama bottoms as well. Maybe it was the sense of gratitude Dan was feeling, or the craziness of his day, or maybe even the absence of plastic bags coating the boy’s body, but Dan found Phil to be extremely attractive.

“You’ll set Dan up for the night?” Mrs. Lester asked Phil, though it was more of a command. “And be sure to turn off the Christmas tree so it doesn’t keep him awake.”

It had just occurred to Dan that he basically crashed their Christmas. “I’m sorry–”

“Don’t be sorry!” she scolded him, shaking her finger at the boy. “We’re delighted you had the sense to come home with Phil. We’ll keep you safe.” She turned her attention to her son. “Make sure he has some blankets, Phil.”

“I will,” he assured his mum.

“There better be.” she glanced down at Dan who’d just finished his hot chocolate. “Actually, I think he needs one now. And so do you; go get them.”

“I’m fine–” Dan started, but she cut him off.

“You’re freezing! I see goosebumps. I’ll get you both blankets. Phil, make this lovely boy some more hot chocolate. Or tea, if you want that. Anything you want, you can have.” She disappeared into the lounge for blankets. Phil took Dan’s mug from him and began making the hot chocolate. Mrs. Lester appeared in the kitchen once again with one large blanket. “I could only find one, so I guess you two will have to share…” She threw the blanket over Dan’s shoulders, placed her hands on her hips, and grinned. “Phil, hurry up with the hot chocolate, sweetie.”

“I have it, mum.” He took the instant hot chocolate out of the microwave and placed it in front of Dan.

“What about soup? Do you want more soup? I’ll get you more soup.”

“I don’t think he wants more soup.” Phil answered for Dan.

“Sure he does! Do you want more soup?”

“There is so much food–” Dan started to say. “–I don’t think so, but thanks.”

“Okay.” She directed her attention at Phil. “I’m going to bed now, but make sure you take care of him. Make sure he knows where everything is at. Dan, if you need anything tonight, go ahead and just get it. Make yourself at home.” She beamed. “You’re one of ours now.”

Dan appreciated the idea, but he thought that was kind of a creepy way to put it. ‘You’re one of ours now’ sounded like something you’d hear on a horror movie, and to be fair, the whole situation he was in itself seemed like something you’d see on a horror movie. He hoped the soup wasn’t poisoned.

Once Mrs. Lester was gone, Dan and Phil stuffed their faces with food, though they weren’t entirely sure she was gone. Neither of them had heard her actually climb the steps, so there was a possibility she was lurking behind the door, listening to them chew.

“This food is really good,” Dan commented as he shoved a piece of turkey into his mouth. “Your mum is a pretty good cook.”

Phil nodded and a small sound could be heard from behind the door to the staircase. Phil furrowed his eyebrows and turned, wiggling the doorknob slightly. Rushed footsteps could be heard as Mrs. Lester hurried up the stairs. “Sorry, I thought I heard something.” He grinned and raised his voice, hoping his mother would hear. “Probably mice.”

Dan played along. “You should get a cat.”

“Yeah, too bad I’m allergic. That must be why we have all of these mice.” He shoved a fork full of mashed potato into his mouth.

“Damn. Guess you’ll have to live with the mice. How unfortunate.” Dan grinned and sipped his hot chocolate that had now cooled down. He looked around the kitchen, just now taking in how much Christmas stuff they really had. “So, did Father Christmas throw up in here or…?”

Phil looked up from his plate with a confused expression, then looked around and finally got it. He nodded his head. “Yeah, my mum is really big on Christmas–” he gestured around him. “–the whole family is, really. Did you notice the electronically lit holly as you walked in the door? That was expensive.”

Dan glanced around the room. In just the kitchen alone, there were more Christmas things than he’d ever seen in his entire life (okay, that was a lie, but the point is, there was a lot of Christmas stuff. It was like his room when he was thirteen and discovered emo bands, but this time with holly jolly Father Christmas) There were Christmas placemats, a Christmas welcome mat, Christmas chair huggers, Christmas dish towels, Christmas bowls, mistletoe in between the kitchen and livingroom, tinsel lining the walls, and so much more.

It made his own house look empty and bland. Sure, his family decorated – they had a tree and a few wreaths, but they by far were not as festive as the Lesters.

Phil must have noticed the look on Dan’s face because he laughed. “You haven’t even seen the lounge yet.” He grinned, picking his plate up and throwing it in the bin. He gestured to Dan’s mostly empty plate. “Are you finished?” Dan nodded his head and handed Phil his plate to dispose in the garbage.

“Let’s get you set up for the night, yeah?” He stood at the doorway to the lounge and waved for Dan to come along. Dan tugged at the sleeves on his jumper and rose from his seat, taking one last sip of cocoa before going and following Phil. He adjusted the blanket draped over his neck and shoulders. “It seems as though you will be sleeping on the sofa.” Phil walked toward a small wooden door and opened it; it was a closet. “Do you need any pillows?”

“Yeah, two would be ideal.” Dan replied and watched as Phil dug through the messy shelves for pillows. Phil pulled out two pillows and placed fresh sheets on them. He tossed them at Dan. “Thanks.”

Phil nodded a you’re welcome in the direction of Dan and plopped down on the reclining chair next to the sofa. Dan awkwardly hugged the pillows and sat down on the sofa, removing the blanket from his shoulders and laying it down next to him.

The two sat in silence. Dan tapped his fingers against the pillows he was still hugging and glanced around the room. There was one tree covered in golden tinsel and colourful ornaments. It had a star on top that twinkled every so often as if it were real. There were also blue, red green, yellow, and white fairy lights lining the walls. The room was so full of Christmas lights, they didn’t even have to turn the regular lights on. Dan wondered how the power hadn’t surged already – or maybe it had.

Dan also noticed a piano in the corner of the lounge. There were open sheets of music that looked like they’d been touched recently. He got up and walked forward; his fingers grazed the top of the piano. “Do you play?” Dan asked, picking up the sheet music. It was, of course, Christmas songs. He shouldn’t have expected anything less.

“No,” Phil replied with a sigh. “but my mum does. She tried to teach my brother and I when we were kids but neither of us really picked it up. Do you?”

“Yeah, I do.” Dan ruffled his curly hair. “I’m, uh, self-taught actually.”

“That’s really cool!” Phil exclaimed. “I wish I could play. I haven’t had the patience to really try – and especially not as a kid,” he paused, “Maybe you can play for us tomorrow? My mum would love that.”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t see why I couldn’t.”

Dan took one more look at the music, then made his way back to the sofa and sat back down. After a while, Dan glanced up at the Elf cuckoo clock on the wall. It seemed late enough to say Violet’s Christmas party was over. He looked at Phil who was sat on his phone, scrolling through something. “Hey,” He caught Phil’s attention, “would I be able to use the phone now?” Dan decided not to go too much into detail on who he was calling.

“Yeah, um, it’s over there.” Phil rose his hand up and pointed behind him. Dan pushed himself up from the sofa and shuffled toward the phone. He dialed Violet’s phone number, glancing from the clock to the ground.

“Hello?” Violet said into the phone. Dan didn’t hear anything in the background, so he assumed the party was over. “Look, if this is about buying a vacuum cleaner, I really don’t–”

Dan’s laugh cut her off. “It’s not about buying anything. Hi, it’s Dan.”

“Oh, hi Dan. Did you arrive safely?” She didn’t seem genuinely interested and overall sounded tired, but Dan answered anyway.

“To my original destination? No, not quite. Did I arrive safely, though? Yeah, still no.”

“Mmmm… what? Sorry, I’m really sleepy. Can you call back tomorrow?”

Dan gripped the phone in his hand tightly. “Um, yeah, sure.”

“Okay. You can tell me all about your trip tomorrow. Bye!”

“Bye.” Dan sighed and hung up the phone. He dragged himself back into the lounge area and plopped onto the sofa.

Phil glanced over at him. “Well, that was quick.” He put his phone away and leaned forward. “So, how did it go?”

“Well, she was tired and so she went to sleep.”

“And…?” Phil waited for something else.

Dan shrugged. “That’s it.”

Phil furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“Does she know where you are? Does she know everything that is going on?”

Dan nodded his head. “Yeah, but she was tired. I can understand that, I mean, she just hosted a party.”

“You’re very compassionate.” Phil observed. “Tell me, besides being intense, what is she like?”

“You’re very nosy.” Dan countered as he twiddled his thumbs. “Why do you keep asking all these questions about Violet?”

“I want to wrap my head around the type of person she is.”

“That doesn’t seem true.” Dan was skeptical of why this information was crucial. “Why don’t you tell me something about you?”

“You’re staying in my house. What more do you need?” Phil joked as he tapped his fingers briefly against the back of his cell phone. He let out a light chuckle. “I mean, you’ve already met my mum – that’s something.”

Dan laughed briefly, then continued to press on for answers. “Okay, but, I hardly know anything about you besides the fact that you don’t have a girlfriend.” Which was, Dan thought, very hard to believe. “Tell me literally anything about you.”

“Okay…” Phil thought for a moment, trying to think of the perfect fact about himself. “I really like lions, I guess?”

“Good start.” Dan replied, nodding his head slowly. “I guess I’ll reply with a fact about myself in return. Um,” he ran through facts about himself in his mind. “my favourite colour is black. Okay, you go.”

Phil shrugged. “I like blue.”

“I have a brother.”

“I also have a brother.” Phil answered back quickly.

“I’m seventeen years old.” Dan spat out. It was almost as if they were having a contest on who could spew out facts the quickest.

“I am also seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in about a month, though.” Phil said nonchalantly.

They went on with their fact game for a little while longer. “It’s quite late,” Phil declared with a yawn. That was his fact. “I think we should both get some sleep, otherwise Father Christmas won’t be coming tonight.” He winked at Dan and laughed as he pushed himself up from the chair.

Dan looked up at the clock; he hadn’t realized it was so late. “Yeah, wouldn’t want that.” He let out a small chuckle.

“Are you good for the night?” Phil asked as he started toward the staircase. “You have pillows, blankets… everything you need, yeah?”

Dan nodded. “Yeah, thank you.”

Phil smiled. “Merry Christmas, Dan.” He began to head up the stairs.

Dan waited until he was gone to let out a heavy sigh. It had only just now hit him that he ruined the Lester family’s Christmas. He crashed it. Mrs. Lester told him over and over again that he was welcome, but was he really? It’s not like they could have just pushed him away – it was Christmas and he had nowhere else to go, so now that he’d shown up… well, what were they going to do? He just felt like if he wouldn’t have come, he wouldn’t have ruined their Christmas.

Dan fell asleep with those thoughts in his head.

He woke up to a loud ringing throughout the house. He would have almost forgotten where he was if it weren’t for Mrs. Lester’s loud singing along to Jingle Bells. He glanced at the cuckoo clock on the wall – at least it wasn’t too early, he thought to himself. He groaned as he pushed himself up into a sitting position on the couch. His feet were cold, he noticed, looking down to see his socks lying in wads on the floor. He bent down and began putting them back on his feet.

The song changed to Let it Snow.

Dan didn’t really know what to do. He didn’t want to experience the awkward period of time with Mrs. Lester before Phil’s waking (which is basically where you make smalltalk with the parent until your friend gets up) because that was excruciating. Mrs. Lester walked into the lounge area, humming brightly to the song. She stopped. “Oh no! Did I wake you?”

Dan shook his head. “No, of course not.” He gave her a small reassuring smile to hide away from the fact that he was lying. “I usually get up at around–” he looked at the cuckoo clock. “–9:47 anyway.”

The corners of her lips raised into a smile. “Good!” she exclaimed in return as she turned back toward the kitchen. “Phil is still sleeping.” She glanced up at the cuckoo clock with a frown. “Are you hungry? I have chocolate chip cookies in the oven.” Dan inhaled the air – he could smell them. “Or we have pancakes, toast, eggs…” she began listing off various breakfast foods.

“Um, everything sounds good,” Dan pushed himself up from the couch and followed her into the kitchen. Mrs. Lester pulled the hot cookie sheet out of the oven. The cookies looked delicious and soft. “I can eat whatever is easiest for you… I don’t want to be a bother.”

“You wouldn’t be,” she assured as she wafted her hand over the cooling cookies. Dan stood tediously at the door, thumbing the sleeve of his jumper. “We’ve invited you here for a reason, you know.”

Dan brought a hand up to his curled hair and ruffled it with a nervous smile. “I can just wait until Phil wakes up, I guess.” Mrs. Lester shrugged her shoulders as she slid the cookies off the pan onto a cooling rack.

“Do you want a cookie?” She signalled to the cooling treats. Dan nodded his head. “Help yourself.” Mrs. Lester rubbed her hands together as she began placing more dough on the now clean cookie sheet. She whistled to the Christmas song in the background, which was now Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer, as she rolled the dough into balls. Dan took the biggest cookie in the batch.

Dan listened to the stairs creak as footsteps approached the kitchen and a sleepy Phil with messy black hair appeared in the doorway. He yawned loudly and stretched his arms above his head. Dan noticed Phil was wearing glasses; they suited him perfectly, Dan thought.

“Good morning,” Phil yawned again, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth. He looked at Dan, “How did you sleep?”

“Well,” Dan replied shortly after swallowing the cookie in his throat. “And you?”

“It was a little cold, but reasonable,” he responded, hovering his hand over the dozen cookies, searching for the best one to choose. “Thank you.”

Enough small talk, Dan begged. Small talk is never fun.

“Dan, honey, have you phoned your family yet? I would hope so.” Phil’s mum rinsed her hands with water before holding the phone out to Dan.

Dan thought about it and soon came to the realization that his parents would not be thrilled about the fact that their son was staying in a stranger’s home, and apart from that, he still hadn’t arrived at his original destination. Dan took the phone with nervous hands before dialling his grandparents’ number. He didn’t know the motel’s number, and didn’t have it memorized, so he decided calling his grandmother was the next best thing to getting ahold of his parents. Plus, she could most likely give him the number to the motel so he could speak with his parents about his unfortunate situation.

Dan scratched his head and began dialing his grandmother’s phone number. Before he could go back, he hit send and pursed his lips together as he tried to think of what to say – how to explain why he wasn’t there. He opted for the truth – it’d be the easiest. It rang three times before he heard a tired ‘Hello’.

“Hi, it’s Dan.” Dan tugged on the hem of his jumper nervously, running over all the events that’d happened since he got on the train.

“Oh goodness gracious! Where are you? You were supposed to be here hours ago. We’ve been worried sick about you. Are you okay?” His grandma buried him in questions. In the distance he heard her muffled voice say, “Did you hear that, Arthur? It’s Daniel, he’s on the phone now.”

Dan let out a soft laugh and looked around the room to see Mrs. Lester staring at him with a beaming smile. “I’m, uh… I’m okay; don’t worry.” He held the telephone closer to his face. “My train crashed into some snow, but now I’m in a safe place and–”

“We’ve been trying to call you. Where is your phone?” His grandmother scolded. Dan could almost see her shaking a finger at him.

“About that…” he sucked in a nervous breath and tapped his fingers on the back of the phone. “I would have spoken with you sooner, but my phone was broken in the process.” Lies – well, half lies. His phone really was broken, but he did have the chance to call her the night before.

“How did it break?” she questioned; a twinge of sadness could be heard in her voice.

“It drowned. In snow.”

His grandmother made a ‘hm’ sound before continuing. “Do you need to ring your parents? I would assume you don’t have the motel memorized, yeah?”

“That’d be great, thank you. Um, hold on…” Dan looked to Mrs. Lester who was still low-key staring at him. He placed his hand over the microphone. “Could I borrow a pen and paper?” She nodded her head and searched the counter for the two. Phil chewed on a piece of toast.

“Here you go.” Mrs. Lester thrusted the two utensils into Dan’s hands, causing him to balance the phone on his shoulder. He mumbled a thank you to her.

“Okay, I’m ready now,” he stated as he pressed the paper up onto the wall and clicked the pen. His grandmother listed off several numbers and he wrote them down. “Thank you, Nan.”

“You’re welcome, Daniel. Go talk to your parents now; they’re worried.” she ordered. “Be safe and we love you.”

“Love you too,” he replied before hanging up on them.

“How’d it go?” Mrs. Lester asked as she took another sheet of cookies out of the oven. She tried to act like she wasn’t listening.

“Okay, I think.” Dan squeezed the phone in his hands. “My grandparents gave me the number to my parents’ motel.”

“That’s lovely!” Mrs. Lester slid the cookies off the baking sheet again. “You can call them now.”

Dan nodded his head. “I was planning to.” He puffed out his cheeks and let out a sigh. “I think you may need to speak with them, though. They’re going to question me a lot more than my–”

Mrs. Lester cut him off. “Of course! No problem.” She wiped her hands on her apron (which was Christmas themed, of course, like everything in their house) and took the sheet of paper from Dan’s hand. “Do you want me to call them instead? I can explain everything mother to mother.”

Dan shrugged his shoulders. “I guess so.” Phil’s mum clutched the paper between her fingers as she punched the numbers on the telephone. Dan pulled out a chair and sat beside Phil. His stomach let out a monstrous growl. Was he hiding a tiger in there, or what?

“Are you hungry?” Phil pushed the plate of toast toward the younger boy. “Here, take some. I made plenty.” Dan noticed there was always ‘plenty’ of food in this house. Plenty of toast, plenty of cookies, plenty of leftovers from Christmas dinner, plenty of everything. Dan took a piece of toast and averted his attention to Mrs. Lester.

“Mrs. Howell, I can assure you your son is safe here with us. I am a mother of two boys–” she paused, Dan figured his mother must have said something. “Phil, my youngest, is turning 18 this January.” She laughed. “I’m getting old!”

“So how did you sleep?” Phil asked, tearing Dan’s attention away from the conversation between their mums.

Dan shrugged his shoulders. “I slept on a couch, so…” He trailed off, then flipped the question to Phil. “How did you sleep?”

Phil thought about his answer. A frown set on his lips. “The mice kept me awake.” Phil let out a laugh and quickly glanced at his mother.

“I told you, you really should get a cat.” Dan shook his head and chuckled.

Dan and Phil’s mums must have shared a bonding moment because Mrs. Lester tilted her head back in a booming laugh and said, “Oh, I know!”

Phil looked at Dan and raised his eyebrows as if to say What are they bonding over? Dan shrugged his shoulders and took another piece of toast from Phil’s plate.

“Okay, alright.” Mrs. Lester nodded. “Yeah, I’ll put him on.” She covered up the phone’s speaker and looked at Dan. “Your mum wants to talk to you.” She held out the phone for him. He got up from the chair, took it, and put it to his ear.

“Hey, mum.” He bit his lip.

“Hey, Dan.” His mum replied. She didn’t sound mad – thanks Mrs. Lester. “Are you okay? I heard you fell in a stream. Is everything intact? No lost limbs, correct?”

Dan acted like he was counting his limbs aloud. “One… two… three… nope, all there.”

“Thank goodness. I didn’t want to have to buy you a new arm for Christmas.”

Dan laughed slightly, then changed the subject. “So how is your trip so far?”

“If you can call this a trip!” Dan’s mum laughed. “Well, a lot of it was spent worrying about whether or not you got to your grandparents’ house or not. After your Nan called and said you hadn’t arrived yet, we tried to phone you, but it went to voicemail straightaway.” She sighed. “We were worried, but now we’re just happy you’re safe and out of the cold.”

“Is it cold there?”

“It’s bloody freezing!” his mum exclaimed. “This place we’re staying in doesn’t have proper heating, but it was the only thing we could get to in the snow and ice.”

“When will you be home?” he asked, pocketing his free hand.

“I could ask you the same, Daniel.” Dan could almost see her eyebrows raising and her lips pursed. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. As soon as this bloody snow lets up.” she promised.

Dan laughed slightly. “At least we get to see a white Christmas.”

“You got me there, mister.” Dan’s mum chuckled lightly. “I’ve got to go, but I’m glad you’re okay. Mrs. Lester said she’ll take care of you – bless her heart. You’ve got the phone number, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, love you.”

“Mhm. Love you too, Mum,” Dan replied and hung up the phone.

Dan wasn’t going to lie, he was a bit surprised his mum didn’t lash out on him for going home with a stranger.

Dan turned away from the phone to find Phil raising his eyebrows. “I guess ‘stranger danger’ doesn’t exist in your home?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Mr. ‘Oh, my mum won’t mind if you come stay with us for Christmas, even though I’ve only just met you less than an hour ago’.” Dan laughed and scratched the back of his neck. “No, um, she was just glad I was okay and out of the cold, I guess.” He frowned. “I’m a bit surprised she didn’t care, though.”

“Why is that?”

“Once, she caught me talking to someone online and took the internet away for a week.”

Phil winced. “Yikes.”

“Phil,” Mrs. Lester interrupted, poking her head around the corner from the lounge. “Would you be able to deliver those two pies in the fridge to the Smiths next door? I’d do it myself but it’s cold.” She let out a small chuckle before scurrying toward the refrigerator and pulling out two pies.

“Yeah, of course.” Phil glanced at Dan quickly to make sure it was okay to leave him alone with his mother. Then, he slid out of his chair and slipped on his coat, reaching into his pockets to pull out a pair of gloves. He slipped those on too. Phil shoved his feet into some shoes and picked up the two pies. “I’ll be back shortly.” He said, looking from his mum to Dan. He went through the door out into the cold air. Dan shivered just thinking about going out there again.

“Are you finished?” Phil’s mum asked, referring to the empty plate of toast in front of Dan on the table. Dan nodded. She picked it up and placed it in the sink. “So,” she tried to make conversation as she rinsed the dish. “How have you been enjoying your Christmas so far?”

Dan opted for the truth. “Not the best.”

Mrs. Lester sighed and wiped her hands on the dish towel. “Aw, holidays are always hard.”

Dan frowned and shook his head. “No, actually holidays have always been good for me – or at least not like this.”

She nodded her head and put her hand on his shoulder. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’ve made our Christmas better.” She grinned at Dan.

Dan didn’t know what to say to that. Thanks? You’re welcome? He chose to just smile, nod his head, and not say anything.

“You’ve made Phil’s exceptionally better too.” Mrs. Lester added, placing one hand on the kitchen chair and another on her hip. Dan rose an eyebrow. Her voice dropped to a whisper, as if someone else was going to hear her. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything, but he may have already told you. I mean he tells a lot of people about it so–”

“Told me what?”

“About Charlie.”

“Who?”

Phil’s mum pulled out a chair and sat down to continue the conversation, quickly glancing at the door before continuing on.

“His ex-boyfriend. They broke up, I don’t know, about three or four months ago. He took it hard.” Phil’s mother replied with a sigh, then continued, “But I haven’t seen Phil smile and laugh as much as last night, when he was with you, since before his Charlie broke up with him.”

“Oh.” Dan said. He felt like he wasn’t supposed to know that. Phil hadn’t mentioned it before, and if he wanted Dan to know he would have told him – especially when they were sharing things about themselves the night before; they were bonding.

“Phil is so lovely, he really is…” She sounded like she was trying to set her son up with the boy she met less than twenty-four hours ago. “He is so funny, and sweet, and caring. Mums love him–” she paused and laughed, placing her hand over her heart, “–I know I do.”

Dan didn’t know what to say. ‘Sorry, I have a girlfriend, though I have to agree, your son is pretty smokin’ hot.’ didn’t seem appropriate. He tapped his fingers against the wooden table and pretended to think.

The situation itself was awful – forced to venture out into the freezing snow up north, only to have his train malfunction, and somehow end up in the Lester household. Dan, who hardly even knew these people, just found out that he was the one to cure Mrs. Lester’s son’s heartbreak. He was her Christmas miracle. She was going to keep him there forever, filling him up with chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate. She finally found someone who brought the spark back into her son and she wasn’t going to give that away. He was going to have to stay in the Lester household, forced to listen to All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey on repeat for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. She was going to marry them right then and there, and his wedding song would be Jingle Bells; he did not want his wedding song to be Jingle Bells.

She changed the subject. “So, you live in Wokingham, right? We have family that lives down there!”

Luckily, before Dan could answer the question, the door clicked open and Phil’s mum scrambled up from the kitchen table. She shot Dan a look as if to say ‘Don’t tell Phil I tried to pimp him out.’ (or maybe it was just ‘don’t tell Phil I told you what I told you’) as he entered the warm house. He shook out his feet to rid them of snow and hung up his coat.

“They said ‘thank you’ and ‘Merry Christmas!’” Phil called out to his mum as he stuffed the gloves into his coat pocket. Phil entered the kitchen. “Hey, Dan,” he said.

Dan nodded in his direction, but didn’t say anything. He could hardly look at Phil when he knew all of which Phil’s mum just told him, all of Phil’s possible feelings. It wasn’t as if he were entirely against it, it was just mostly awkward. Dan excused himself to the bathroom.

How long can you spend in someone’s bathroom without things getting awkward?, Dan wondered as he sat there, trying to avoid Phil. It seemed that hiding in bathrooms had become a popular resort for him over the past couple of days.

Dan looked in the mirror. He had messy curly hair, which he’d completely forgotten about, and tired eyes. He knew his breath smelled awful, but unfortunately he hadn’t packed a toothbrush (and if he had, it’d be gross and infected with stream water anyway). He looked around the bathroom for something to fix his breath and teeth. He scrubbed his teeth with water and his finger, hoping that’d help at least a little bit, and found some small disposable cups under the sink to pour mouthwash into. He hoped he wasn’t being too much of a bother by using some of their Listerine, but they had told him to make himself at home, and at home he brushed his teeth.

Dan looked in the mirror again and tried to do something with his curls, but ended up just running his fingers through them to rid the tangles and fluff them up a bit.

Dan finally left the bathroom. He couldn’t make it seem like he was avoiding Phil, especially when he didn’t even know for certain that Phil did have any feelings for him. Phil must have just really enjoyed Christmas, that’s all. Though, thinking back to some of the things Phil said before, led Dan to believe that it wasn’t entirely the second one. He tried to believe it, though.

Dan went back to the kitchen where Mrs. Lester was furiously shoving a blanket into Phil’s arms. “Your skin is so cold. Take the blanket.”

“I don’t need a blanket, mum. I’m fine.” Phil protested.

“Yes, you do. It is below freezing out there,” Phil’s mum pushed the blanket back into Phil’s hands. She looked up to see Dan. “Oh look,” She smiled up at him. “You should both get a blanket and stay warm,” Mrs. Lester glanced from Dan to Phil with a frown. “You both got terrible chills last night, falling in the stream and all, and I promised your mum I’d take care of you – at least until we find out about your train, which–” she craned her head to see out the window. “–doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere soon, as it is still snowing like mad out there.”

Up until a few minutes ago, Dan would have assumed she meant two separate blankets on different sides of the room, or even better, in different rooms. Completely innocent. Entirely platonic. Now, after having that talk, he wasn’t so sure. She had a look in her eye that said, ‘I’m going to hide all of the blankets so you two will have to share one’. Most parents would prefer the first, but he realized that Mrs. Lester wasn’t like “most parents.” She couldn’t care less if her son and some random stranger were cuddling on her couch watching cheesy Christmas movies. In fact, she encouraged it. If the two boys felt the need to spare a blanket and just use one, she wasn’t going to stop them. It was all just strange to Dan.

The phone then began to ring. Mrs. Lester hurried to pick it up. She looked at the caller ID, then looked to Phil with a smile. “It’s your brother.” She answered the phone and waved her hand away at Dan and Phil to go away as she spoke to him on the phone.

Dan and Phil followed suit. They plopped down on the couch, draping their (separate) blankets over themselves. Dan noticed how close he and Phil were, which oddly, despite the previous conversation he had with Phil’s mum, he didn’t mind so much.

“So…” Phil said, trying to break the silence. “Has Violet called back yet?”

Dan had almost forgotten about her supposed calling. “No.”

“Oh.” Phil replied, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. “I just thought she was supposed to call you first thing in the morning.”

Dan glanced at the cuckoo clock in front of them and shrugged. “It’s still early, maybe she’s sleeping.” That possibility was quite low with Violet’s younger sister and her joy of Christmas, but Dan tried to convince himself that was the case.

Phil raised an eyebrow. “At 11:45 A.M.? On Christmas?” He frowned at Dan.

Dan shrugged, though Phil was not helping. “She must of had a late night.”

Phil opened his mouth to continue the conversation, but was interrupted by his mum, hurrying into the lounge with a bulky coat and a plate of cookies. “That was your brother.” She repeated. Her voice was muffled under the large coat, but still audible. “I’m going to bring these over to him–” she held up the plate of chocolate chip cookies. “–and have a hot chocolate or two. You both are welcome to come if you like.” Dan took it as Phil’s brother lived within a short walking distance due to the absence of keys in her hands.

Phil looked at Dan for any indication of him wanting to go; Dan showed none. He shook his head. “No, I think we’ll stay here.”

“Okay,” Mrs. Lester beamed. “You two have fun.” The words, ‘But not too much fun.’ did not exit her mouth.

“We will.” Phil nodded for her to go.

“See you in a few hours.” She smirked and headed out the door. The door clicked behind her.

After a few moments of waiting and staring at the door, Phil finally turned his attention to Dan. “What do you want to do?”

Dan shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You’re not much help,” Phil whined, bunching the blanket up in his hands.

“It’s your house; what is there to do?” Dan countered.

“Well,” Phil began, searching his brain for ideas. “we could play Pictionary?”

Dan shook his head. “Nah, I can’t draw.”

“Perfect,” Phil replied with a grin. “Me neither. Besides, I’m sure you’re not that bad.”

Dan scoffed. “Are you kidding me? I’m terrible. Please, let’s play a different game.” He begged.

Phil thought again, “How are you with words? How about Scrabble?”

Dan smiled deviously. “Oh, I have a magnificent vocabulary. Bring it on.”

And so they played.

Dan was in the lead with a total of 230 points, and the board was filling up quickly. Phil, following closely behind with 223 points. Desperate for the win, Phil began playing things like ‘La’ and ‘Re’, which Dan mostly accepted; he could see people actually using those words, so he let it slide. However, he was not going to let it slide when Phil played the word ‘Zax’, earning himself 19 points and surpassing Dan in the process.

“What the hell, Phil! That’s not a word!” Dan whined. He would have probably let it slide if Phil hadn’t gotten the most points he possibly could while playing that word, along with passing Dan.

“Yes, it is.” Phil had no idea whether or not it was an actual word; he just knew it rid him of two problematic letters as well as earned him 19 points in the process. Who was he to deny that it was a word?

“Oh my god,” Dan crossed his arms. “No it is not, you cheater.” Great job, Dan. You’d been staying in this guy’s house for less than a day and you’ve already accused him of cheating at Scrabble.

Phil also crossed his arms. “Look it up in the dictionary if you don’t believe me.” He wasn’t too sure about this, but he didn’t want to admit defeat just yet. There was still a slight possibility of ‘Zax’ being a word. He hoped it was.

“Dictionary?” Dan uncrossed his arms and raised a brow. “Okay, I will.” He pushed himself up and glanced around for a dictionary.

“Over there.” Phil pointed at a bookshelf hidden slightly behind the Christmas tree. Dan slid his way through and searched for the dictionary.

“Found it,” he announced as he pulled the dusty book from the shelf. He assumed the Lesters didn’t use the dictionary very often as it was full of dust, though, not really anyone used dictionaries anymore; everyone used computers and dictionary.com. Dan thumbed through the pages, skimming over the multiple Z words. “What the fuck?” he said to no one in particular as his eyes scanned the word in question.

“What?” Phil asked and pushed himself into a kneeling position.

“It’s actually a word?” If question marks could be visible over someone’s head, this would certainly be the time to show a series of them floating over Dan’s head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I told you it was a word.” Phil tried to act smug as he placed his arms over his chest. He leaned forward on his knees. “What is the definition, though?”

Dan read aloud, “A tool for trimming and puncturing roofing slates.” Dan slammed the book closed and rose a brow. “How exactly did you know that was a word?”

Phil shrugged. “I didn’t. I just needed some points.” He grinned.

The phone rang. Phil sighed loudly and pushed himself up from the floor to answer it. “It’s probably my mum or something wondering how we are.”

Dan glanced up at the clock on the wall. It’d been almost an hour since Phil’s mum had left and he hardly even noticed. Dan had to admit that Phil was extremely good company. Usually, Dan didn’t have time to sit around and play Scrabble, he was too busy planning with Violet, or studying with Violet, or at play practice with Violet. It was nice to just relax for once.

Phil picked up the phone. It wasn’t his mum. “Uh, yeah, I’ll let you speak to him… Dan?” Phil held out the phone with raised brows as he covered the speaker. He smiled smugly. “It’s for you; I believe they called you ‘Boobear’,” He laughed as Dan snatched the phone from him, eager to speak to Violet.

“Who was that?” Violet asked when Dan said hello.

“That was Phil,” Dan answered. “I’m kind of staying at his house. Anyway, long story–”

Violet cut him off. “I thought you were with your Grandparents? You lied to me?” Dan could hear music and people talking. She said it loud enough for the people to wonder what was going on. Dan bit his lip.

“No, no, not at all.” Dan explained. “My train crashed into this humongous pile of snow, so I walked over to this cafe across the street, and–”

“Why did you get off?” Violet interrupted again. Her voice seemed to be getting tighter and tighter as they went on talking, and Dan could almost see her pursed lips. He heard the music and people around her go quiet, so he assumed either she left the room, or everyone knew what was going on. He hoped for the first option.

“There were these two annoying girls.”

“Oh my goodness, I know the feel.” she sighed, relieved.

“Anyway,” Dan continued on. “I ended up meeting Phil in a cafe. We made this really long hike to Phil’s house in the freezing cold and fell into a stream, but thankfully we’re okay. No frostbite here.” He laughed and scratched the back of his neck. “So now I’m staying at Phil’s house for Christmas and–”

“Wow,” Violet replied, sounding slightly amused. “That sounds complicated.” She was finally listening to him. Dan heard the people get louder as if they were really just trying to listen in on their conversation and she hadn’t actually left the room at all.

“Listen,” she said. “We’re about to go visit our neighbours. It’ll just be like an hour or two, I’ll call you back when we get home and you can tell me your whole little story.”

Dan blinked hard and his jaw dropped slightly. He gripped the phone in shock. “Violet, were you not listening to anything I said?”

“I was, I was.” Violet countered. “Look, I really need to go. I’ll call you back in an hour or two, we won’t be long.”

And before Dan could reply, the line clicked and she was gone. Once again.

Dan sighed heavily as he hung up the phone and Phil entered the kitchen. He filled up the kettle and put it on the stove. “That was quick.” he commented as he switched it on.

Dan wet his lips and shrugged. “She had to go somewhere.”

“So she just hung up? That’s stupid.”

“Why do you think that is stupid?” Dan felt way too defensive of Violet.

“I don’t know.” Phil clasped his hands together. “I would probably be worried. I’m a little bit of a worrier.” Dan was worried, he just didn’t want to show it. He wasn’t sure what he was worried about, but he was anxious about something – maybe it was the fact that he was currently standing in a stranger’s house talking about his girlfriend with said stranger.

“You don’t seem like a worrier.” Dan mumbled. “You seem happy.”

Phil leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms in a shrug. “I can be a worrier and a happy person.”

“What do you worry about?” Dan furrowed his eyebrows and took a step closer.

“A lot of things.”

“Like what?” Dan questioned.

Phil frowned. “This storm could certainly be one of my worries. Who’s to say I’m not worried about Tesco getting snowed in for weeks and destroying my source of income?”

“Deep.” Dan nodded and stroked his chin mockingly.

“What was I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know. You’re not really supposed to say anything.” Dan answered. “But what about how this storm could be evidence of a climate change? Or those who could be sick and can’t get to the hospital because of the snow? Or the thousands of people freezing outside right now because they don’t have homes to go into to get away from the cold?”

“Is that what Violet would say?”

Dan didn’t really appreciate the unexpected pop at his girlfriend. It wasn’t that Phil was wrong or anything because that was exactly something Violet would say; it was scarily close.

“You asked me a question and I told you my answer.” Phil was quiet a moment, then continued on. “Can I tell you something you really won’t like to hear?”

“No.”

“She is going to break up with you.”

Dan didn’t reply. He felt his heart physically sink with the sudden realization that Phil was probably right. He didn’t want to believe it.

“Sorry,” Phil went on. “I’m only trying to help you.” He watched Dan’s face. “She is going to break up with you, you know.”

“Shut up, you’re wrong.” Dan denied. “You’re only saying that because of your ex-boyfriend.”

Phil tightened his jaw and glared at Dan before creasing his eyebrows, his line of sight falling to the floor. “So, my mum told you all about it?” Phil didn’t specify what ‘it’ was, but Dan assumed he meant the situation.

“Not all about it.”

“This has nothing to do with him.” Phil snapped as he glanced back up at Dan and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Really?” Dan had almost no idea what happened between Phil and his ex-boyfriend, but he had gotten the reaction he wanted.

“He has nothing to do with it,” he sternly repeated. “Do you actually want to know how I know what is going to happen?”

Dan really didn’t. He wanted nothing more than to not know, but Phil continued on anyway.

“She’s treating you like a chore. You know who does that? People who are going to break up with someone. She’s also avoiding you during Christmas. You know who also does that? People who are going to break up with someone. Why? Big days cause them to panic, they feel guilty. They can’t get as festive as you, whether it’s holidays, birthdays, anniversaries…”

“She’s busy.” Dan said weakly. He wasn’t holding up much of an argument. “She has a lot of things going on.”

“Okay, well, if I had a boyfriend, and his parents were trapped in some unknown foreign country on Christmas Eve, and he had to take a long train ride through this snowstorm, then I’d definitely have my phone in my hand at all times. And then, I would answer it on the first ring every time. And I’d call him to check on him and make sure he’s doing okay.”

Phil was right. Dan was stunned in shock of the truth. That’s what Violet should have been doing. She should have actually listened to him.

“You told her that you fell into a freezing stream, and that you were trapped in a strange town with strangers, and she hung up. If I were in that position, maybe it sounds dumb, but I’d be worried sick. I’d try to come down here, snow or no snow.” Phil quieted, then cleared his throat. “And if you want my advice, if she isn’t going to break up with you, then you should break up with her.”

Phil rushed as he said it, as if everything he’d just said had been building up inside of him for months, just waiting to get out, but he clearly meant every word he said. Everything Phil said was something Violet should have told him on the phone. It was everything Dan wished Violet would have said to him on the phone.

“I think I need a minute.” Dan finally broke the silence. He swallowed hard. “Is there anywhere I can go?”

“My room, I guess, but it’s a little messy. It’s up the stairs, second on the left.”

Dan nodded a thank you and left to find Phil’s bedroom.

Dan opened the door to Phil’s room, and he wasn’t kidding. The boy’s room was a mess, though definitely not as messy as he’d imagined. There were just a couple things on the floor, an unmade bed, and a few empty bottles of water on his bedside table.

Dan sat on Phil’s unmade bed and thought about everything that had just happened in the past hour. Or at least tried to think as the kettle released a high-pitched screaming noise, signaling it was finally done. He heard Phil scrambling to quiet it down.

Phil’s phone laid on his bedside table. Dan picked it up and, sure enough, it wasn’t password protected. Dan dialled Violet’s phone number. She sounded annoyed when she answered to find it was Dan who called. “Hey,” she said, trying to keep it casual. “We were just about to leave and–”

“In the last twenty-four hours,” Dan said, cutting her off. “I’ve been put on a train, which got stuck in a blizzard. I’ve walked kilometers in deep snow with bags around my ankles. I fell through ice into a freezing stream, and I’m trapped in a town with people I don’t know, staying with people I don’t know. And your excuse is for not being able to talk what exactly? It’s Christmas?”

That shut her up, which wasn’t exactly what Dan was hoping for, but he was glad that she had some sense of shame.

Dan wet his lips before continuing on. “Be honest. Are you really feeling this anymore? Do you still want to go out with me?”

Violet was silent for a long time. It was too long for the answer to be yes.

“Boobear,” she sighed, her voice strained. “Can we not talk about this now?”

“Why?”

“It’s Christmas.”

“Shouldn’t that be more of a reason to talk?”

“You know how it is…”

“Well,” Dan snapped, letting the anger he should have been feeling those past twenty-four hours rise into his voice. “You have to talk to me because I am breaking up with you.”

Dan could hardly believe those words had just come from his mouth, and yet, they lifted so much weight off of his shoulders. Suddenly he felt a lot lighter.

There was a long silence before she finally spoke. “Okay.” she didn’t seem phased by her relationship ending at all. She didn’t cry, in fact, she sounded relieved, relieved she didn’t have to do it.

“Well?” ‘Okay’ was not the reaction Dan was hoping for. He was hoping Phil was wrong and she’d be upset about their break up. Maybe she’d even shed a tear or two.

“Well, what?” she sounded bored, as if he was taking up tons of her precious time. Her neighbours could wait.

“Are you going to say anything?”

“Well, I’ve kind of known for a while. I was thinking about this too, and well, if it’s what you want then–”

“Merry Christmas.” Dan snapped and hung up the phone. He dropped it next to him on the bed. His hands shook slightly as he wrapped them around himself. The room was silent, excluding Dan’s quiet, exasperated breathing.

The door creaked open as Phil knocked softly three times. Dan looked up to find Phil pushing the door open cautiously. “I, uh, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Phil stammered, seeing Dan’s slightly reddened face.

“I did it.” Dan tapped his fingertips together. “I just picked up the phone and I did it.”

Phil shut the door behind him and sat down on the bed next to Dan.

Dan continued on, “She didn’t even seem surprised.”

“You know they never are,” Phil leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “What did she say?”

“Not what I wanted her to say. Something about how she knew this was going to happen eventually and it’s probably for the best.” he sighed.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Dan’s head was spinning, so it was probably for the best. Finally, Phil spoke up. “Charlie was like Violet. He was really… perfect. You know, good grades, a lot of friends, the whole package,” he waved his hand. “Anyway, we dated for a good year and a half. We were happy, or I thought we were. The problem was he was always busy. He was too busy to call, too busy to text, too busy to stop by. If I wanted to talk to him, I’d have to call him first, text him first, visit him first. It was exhausting to feel like the only one putting effort into our relationship, but I did it anyway.”

Dan frowned. It sounded familiar.

“One night, we were supposed to study together,” he went off track. “Which sounds so boring by the way. I didn’t want to study, I wanted to play Mario Kart. Anyway, he wanted to study, so I agreed. It was time well spent with my boyfriend, right? Yeah, well, he didn’t show up. I was worried, but I figured maybe he just forgot. So I went to his house, but his mum answered the door and told me he wasn’t there and he left an hour ago. So naturally, I searched around town, frantically searching for any signs of him – I mean, there are only so many places you can hang out here, he had to be somewhere close. I found his bike in the parking lot of Starbucks. I was relieved – maybe I’d forgotten and we were supposed to meet at Starbucks. We’d studied there before.” He messed anxiously with the sleeves of his jumper as he spoke.

“I figured that I’d just made a mistake,” he said pointedly. “He didn’t really like coming here very much. Something about my mum and how she can be a little… you know.” He wavered his hands sideways and looked over at Dan, laughing softly. “If you can believe that.” Dan nodded in response and managed a small smile.

“I felt so relieved walking in there. Of course, I was supposed to meet him there. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten. How could I be so stupid? He was waiting for me at Starbucks all along while I ran around town for him. So, I went into Starbucks and I noticed he wasn’t in there, but one of my friends, Louise, was working there. So I asked her if Charlie was there, and she nodded her head with a sad expression and pointed to the bathroom, telling me he was in there. I couldn’t really figure out how being in the bathroom was sad, so I bought a pumpkin spiced latte, then got a coffee for Charlie, and sat down and waited. There was only one bathroom in the Starbucks, so I figured he had to come out eventually. I didn’t have anything with me – no computer, no books, so I just sat there and stared at this gigantic wall mural with loads of colourful swirling patterns, thinking about how stupid I was to get upset with him when I was supposed to meet him there. I realized he’d been in the bathroom for a really long time and Louise was still looking over at me, really upset-like. Louise went over and knocked on the bathroom door, and Charlie came out. So did William, the star football player. And I was so confused because William never showed any signs in liking anyone except girls, besides, why was he in there with my boyfriend, during our study session?”

Dan momentarily forgot all about his phone call and was now in the Starbucks with Phil as all of this went down. He saw two people he didn’t even know emerge from the bathroom.

“What did you do?” Dan asked, tapping his fingers against his knee.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I stood there. I thought I was going to be sick right then and there. And then Charlie got furious with me.”

Dan squinted his eyes in disbelief. “What?”

“I couldn’t tell if he was more freaked out by the fact that he was caught doing sneaky things in the bathroom of Starbucks, or that I’d randomly followed him there, but the only way he could react was by accusing me of spying on him. He said I was possessive and that I put a lot of pressure on him – which was the other way around to me, looking back now – and he made me sound awful in front of the few people there at Starbucks, which may as well be everyone around here because nothing stays quiet here. I wanted to say, ‘You’re making out with the star football player in the bathroom of Starbucks. I am not the villain.’ But I didn’t say that because I literally couldn’t talk. My mouth was glued shut, so it probably looked like I agreed with him. I was some possessive stalker boyfriend… not the guy who was in love with him and had been for a year and a half.”

There was probably a point in time when Phil told and retold this story over and over again, trying to get the message across to everyone that he was not a stalker. He clearly hadn’t told it in a while, and had kept it bottled up as his expression didn’t change much.

“Louise took him by the arm and walked him outside to calm him down. I stood there, still frozen as William scratched the hickey on his neck and hurried away.” Phil smacked his lips together. “That’s pretty much how it ended. I became the guy who was dumped in public when his boyfriend cheated on him with the supposedly straight football “star,” but I got a free latte, so I guess it wasn’t a total loss.” Phil rubbed his hands together and sat up straight. He looked at Dan. “I had a point in saying all of that: that girl…” he picked up the discarded cell phone.

“…is a twat.” Dan finished, letting out a long, deep breath. He couldn’t believe how good it felt to get that off his chest.

Everything that had happened with Violet and Dan before was playing in the back of his mind at super-speed, but he was looking at them differently. There he was, holding hands with Violet, but she was always one foot in front of him, pulling him through the hall, talking to everyone except for him along the way. He was like her accessory. Front row at football games, even though Dan hated sports, but he still went. All of the boring, repetitive lunch conversations about what their futures hold when thinking about the future made Dan feel queasy.

Dan had been bored for a year and hadn’t spoken about himself in ages. Phil was talking about him. He was actually paying attention, and it felt foreign. It felt a little embarrassingly intimate, but great.

Phil opened his arms up a little for Dan to pour himself into, inviting him into his embrace. They inched closer and closer together, then at some point something was about to give. Dan could feel himself ready to start sobbing, which made him angry because Violet didn’t deserve his tears. He was not going to cry.

So, he kissed him.

And he really kissed him, like, knocked-him-backwards kissed him. Phil kissed him back. It was a good kiss, messy, but good. It wasn’t too wet, to the point where Dan’s lips were raw by the time it was over, and it wasn’t too dry to the point where Dan’s lips were like the Sahara Desert when it was over. It wasn’t perfect either; it was kind of frantic, but that was mostly because neither of them had the mental preparation before it happened. It was more of a, Oh! We’re kissing now! Okay! Move lips together! Quickly, quickly! Cup his face! Do we want tongue?! Throw it in there just in case! Shit, our noses just clunked together; I hope he doesn’t get a nose bleed.

It took a moment before they slowed their speed, transferring into a lighter and slower pattern. Dan felt like he was floating away as his lips brushed against Phil’s. Dan’s hands traveled down Phil’s spine as Phil pulled him closer toward himself. His hands fondled with Dan’s curls. Their moment was interrupted by loud footsteps coming up the stairs and the humming of Christmas music. Mrs. Lester had, of course, chosen that moment to return home from her son’s house. “Phil! Dan! I ran into Santa on my way home and he gave me cookies and eggnog!”

Dan and Phil both frantically opened their eyes again and stared at one another before pushing each other away. They both pushed themselves upright and tried to fix themselves in the possibility of Phil’s mum coming in. Dan frantically attempted to fix his tousled hair as the footsteps got louder and louder. Phil brushed the excess saliva from his swollen lips and flattened down his wrinkled jumper.

Mrs. Lester must have seen the bedroom light on because she giggled and mumbled, “Oh,” to herself as she tiptoed away. Dan stared at the door and scratched his head, dreading the awkward moment where she’d walk in and see swollen lips and messy hair. She didn’t open the door at all. “They must be busy.” she murmured to herself as she creeped away.

Dan turned his head to look at Phil who threw his head back and sighed in relief. Dan’s stomach turned at Mrs. Lester’s comment. Phil jumped up from the bed and fingered the hem of his jumper. “I should probably, uh,” he fumbled over his words. “I should go downstairs. Do you need anything?”

Dan smoothed down his clothes and shook his head quickly. “Nope! I’m fantastic, thanks!” Dan said, a burst of enthusiasm lining his voice.

Phil bolted out the door.

It took Dan exactly twenty-three minutes to get over his “perfect” girlfriend and start making out with someone else. Twenty-three minutes to pounce on some guy he’d known for less than a day and smash faces with him. Twenty-three minutes to shove his tongue down Phil’s throat.

As much as Dan would have liked to, he couldn’t hide upstairs from Phil forever. Sooner or later he was going to have to come down and face the world. Dan listened closely to what was happening downstairs. It was mostly quiet besides the quiet singing of Baby It’s Cold Outside and the front door slamming closed as someone went outside. Dan thought it seemed like as good a cue as any, so he opened Phil’s bedroom door a crack and peeked outside. He didn’t see anyone so he quietly continued his journey down the stairs.

“Dan? Is that you?” Mrs. Lester’s voice came from the other side of the lounge where she was stood on a chair fixing the lights. She climbed down from the chair brushed her thighs. “Phil went across the street to help little Miss Gretchen shovel her path. He looked out the window and saw her struggling as she tried to shovel the ice. Poor woman is going to break a hip if she keeps it up.” She clasped her hands together and looked him up and down. “You two have a… nice afternoon?”

Dan nodded stiffly. “Yeah, it was fine. We played Scrabble.”

Phil’s mother rose her eyebrows and grinned, placing her hands on her hips. “Is that what you’re all calling it these days?” she chuckled, then continued, “I’m going to go draw a bath, since I can go upstairs now. You can make yourself some cocoa or there’s tea on the stove if you’d like.”

Mrs. Lester left Dan to his hot chocolate and shame as she headed up the stairs.

Dan went to the window and pulled back the curtain, and sure enough, there was Phil helping his neighbour shovel snow. He thought about it and realized that Phil was probably just getting away from him – it made sense; Dan would have probably done the same thing given the chance. It was best for Phil to go out into the freezing weather and plow snow for his neighbour and hope Dan went away.

Which is what Dan had to do. He had to go away. He had to get out of that house and Phil’s life now while he still had that tiny shred of dignity left. He would go find his train. It was probably leaving town soon anyway – how long does it really take to get a train back and working on the track?

As soon as he made that decision, he moved quickly throughout the house to find his things. He found the heater with his clothes and backpack, and threw everything there into his backpack. He slipped on his shoes and began his search for the washing machine. Luckily, he found it easily, and hurriedly changed back into his old clothes. Dan left Phil’s clothes in the washer – he may have been leaving without a word, but at least he was nice enough not to make a physical mess.

Dan saw a container of plastic bags in the corner by the washing machine. He took a few. He felt bad for taking something without asking, but his mother did say he was welcome to anything in the house. Plastic bags were anything.

Dan noticed his phone lying next to the washer too. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It looked bad. He pressed the on button, not expecting it to work, and it flickered on. The screen was off centered and everything was jumbled, but surprisingly, it still turned on. He shoved it into his coat pocket. He noticed some return address labels and took one. He would send a thank you letter or something when he got home.

Obviously, he had to take the back door out. If he were to take the front door, Phil would see him and it’d be awkward, and frankly, he wasn’t really in the mood for that explanation. The snow in front of the backdoor piled up high since the night before; it was hard and cold, but the feelings of his confusion and panic were enough to get the door to budge open. He pushed hard and a grunt, a torn plastic bag, and an arm scrape later, the door swung open. Once he was out, he tried to push the door closed, but it had jammed in the snow. He threw all of his weight on it to get it closed; he just barely got the door shut.

Feeling accomplished, as he was finally out of the house, he came to face another issue. He couldn’t return the way they had come from. All of their tracks were gone, covered up by the freshly fallen snow, and he couldn’t remember the way. Even if he could, they’d broken through the ice the night before. He was stuck alone on a hill, surrounded by trees. All he knew for sure was that somewhere below him was a small broken stream. The safest bet, he figured, was to stay close to the houses and trespass through a few gardens. If he could get back to the road, he could probably find his way back to the Cafe, and then his train.

Unfortunately, Phil’s neighbourhood didn’t follow the lovely, neat logic of streets in most neighbourhoods. The houses had been plunked down with an alarming rate of randomness – they were unevenly spaced and in crooked lines, like whoever designed the place had said, “We’ll just follow this cat, and wherever he sits down, we’ll build a house.” The disorganization of houses was so bad, Dan couldn’t even figure out where the road was supposed to be. No one had come in with snow plows yet, and no one was crazy enough to drive in this kind of snow. He couldn’t follow the streetlights because those were off as well. There was no obvious route out of there.

All of the walking Dan was doing gave him some time to think about everything that had just happened in the past twenty-four hours. He’d just gotten on a train to his grandparents’ house, crashed into a pile of snow, got off the train, went to a cafe, met a stranger, went home with that stranger, realized his girlfriend was treating him terribly, broke up with her, made out with the stranger, and left the stranger’s house.

How was Dan going to explain to his family, his friends, and people at school that he broke up with Violet? They all loved her to pieces. His parents were clearly proud that he had such an impressive girlfriend. What were they going to think when he broke the news? Sure, they’d be happy that he was happy, but at what cost?

And then there was Phil.

Phil, who had just witnessed Dan go through a long range of emotions – from head-over-heels in love with his girlfriend to jumping on top of him and sticking his tongue down his throat after his breakup.

Dan felt like he’d messed everything up very, very badly. The regret and humiliation pained him more than the cold. It took him a few streets to realize that it wasn’t really Violet that Dan was regretting, it was Phil. Phil who rescued Dan. Phil who actually wanted to spend time with him. Phil who was honest with him and told him not to sell himself short.

It was the Phil who would be relieved to find Dan gone, for everything that had just happened. As long as Phil didn’t do any excessive internet stalking, Dan would be untraceable, though he didn’t believe Phil would actually look. Not after the show he’d just put on.

…Unless Dan were to just wind up at Phil’s door again. Which, after an hour of wandering around, he realized he was in real danger of that happening. Everything just seemed to look the same. He felt like he was seeing the same houses, the same Christmas decorations, over and over again.

Dan occasionally stopped and asked some people, who were outside shoveling snow, for directions, but they all seemed extremely concerned that he was trying to walk that far, so they wouldn’t tell him where to go. About half of them asked him to come inside and get warm, which he thought sounded good, but he’d already made that mistake once in this town, and look where that brought him. He wasn’t going to take anymore chances.

Dan was slugging past a group of young children playing in the snow when the despair truly set in. He felt like crying. His face was cold, his arms were cold, his ears were cold, and his feet were probably cold too, but he wouldn’t know because couldn’t even feel them. His knees were stiffened as he attempted to drag himself on. And that’s when he heard a voice behind him.

“Wait,” Phil called out.

Dan stopped in his tracks. Running away was exceedingly pathetic, but it’s even worse getting caught running away. Dan stood there, unwilling (and partly unable) to turn around and face him. He tried to arrange his expression into the most casual ‘Ha-ha! Funny meeting you here, isn’t life just so funny!’ face he could. From the way his facial muscles felt, he was sure that his face looked more like he had a bad case of lockjaw.

Dan clenched his teeth together into a forced smile and waddled to face Phil. “Sorry, I just thought I should probably get back to my train and–”

“Yeah,” Phil cut him off and smacked his lips together. His eyes were focused on the ground instead of on Dan’s face, and his hands were pocketed. “I kind of figured that was your intention.” He pulled a proper, if not slightly embarrassing, hat out of his pocket. It had a large pom-pom at the top. “I think you probably need this,” he said, holding out the hat. “You can have it. We don’t need it back.”

Phil tossed it to Dan. Dan caught it and pulled it on his head. It wasn’t the most suitable choice for him, but it fit and brought warmth to his frozen ears.

“I followed your footsteps,” Phil said, in answer to the unspoken question. “Snow makes it easy.”

Dan had been tracked – literally.

“Sorry to put you through all that trouble.” Dan said.

“I didn’t have to really go that far. You’re only about three streets over. You just kept going in loops.”

Dan was like a really inept bear.

“I can’t believe you didn’t let me walk you. You’re not going to get there this way.”

“I’m fine,” Dan said maybe a little too quickly. “Someone just told me the way.”

“You really don’t have to leave, you know.”

Dan just stood there. He didn’t say anything back so Phil took this as a cue to leave. He nodded.

“Be careful, okay? And, can you just let me know that you made it home safely? Call or–”

And then Dan’s phone started ringing. The ring must have been damaged by the water as well, so instead of a normal ringing noise, it had more of a high-pitched note. It sounded like the sound a mermaid would probably make if you punched her in the face: surprised, accusatory, hurt, and gurgle-y.

It was Violet. On his broken screen it actually read ‘Vyplsj’ was calling, but he knew what it meant. Dan didn’t answer, he just stared at it. Phil also stared at it. The children around Dan and Phil stared at them staring at the phone. It stopped ringing and then started again.

“I’m sorry if I was an idiot,” Phil spoke up to talk over the ringing noise. “And you probably don’t care what I think, but you probably shouldn’t answer that.”

“Wait,” Dan said, trying to speak over the loud ringing of his cell phone. He wished the volume button wasn’t so messed up so he could turn it down. “What do you mean you were the idiot?”

Phil fell silent. The ringing stopped, then started again. Vyplsj really wanted to talk to Dan.

“I told Charlie I would wait for him,” he finally said. “I told him I would wait as long as it took. He told me that I shouldn’t even bother, but I did it anyway. For months, I was determined not to even look at any other people…” He looked sad for a moment. “But I noticed you,” he went on. “And it drove me crazy from the first second. It wasn’t that I just noticed you, but I also noticed you were going out with some ‘perfect’ girl and she definitely didn’t deserve you. It was kind of the same situation I was in. It seems like she’s realized her mistake, though.”

He nodded toward the phone, which began ringing again.

“I’m still very glad you came,” he added. “And don’t give her another chance, okay? If nothing else, don’t give in. She doesn’t deserve you. Don’t let her fool you.”

The phone rang and rang and rang. The high-pitched noise seemed to be getting louder and louder with each ring. Dan looked from the phone to Phil, then he dropped it. It disappeared under the snow.

“Whoops,” Dan attempted to shrug his shoulders, but they were frozen from being out in the cold all that time. “Lost it.”

Phil looked up from the ground. It was the first time he looked up since they began talking. Dan had already dropped the awful grimace, by that point. Phil stepped forward, lifted Dan’s chin, and kissed him. And when Phil kissed him, Dan didn’t notice the cold, or care that the kids were standing there staring at the two boys in curiousity. The kiss brought warmth into Dan’s body. It thawed his blood. He could finally feel his legs again.

“One thing,” Dan said when they had broken apart and the swirling feeling in his head had subsided. “Maybe… don’t tell your mum too much about this.” Dan rose his eyebrows. “I think she may have ideas.”

Phil acted surprised. “What?” he gasped. “Do your parents not cheer and gawk at you when you make out with someone? Is that not normal?” He grinned.

“Shut up, Lester. If I knock you down into the snow, these kids will swarm and eat you.”

Phil laughed. He must have noticed Dan’s lack of warmth as he unzipped his coat and invited Dan into it. If Dan didn’t know better, he’d think Phil had chosen the bigger coat for that reason. They made their way through the piles and piles of snow, trying not to trip over each other’s feet as they walked on so close together.

“Do you want to take the long way back to my house?” Phil asked. “Or should we take the shortcut? You have got to be cold.” He pulled Dan closer into him.

“Long way,” Dan replied, a smile lining his lips. “Long way, for sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!


End file.
